


Leave me loved

by Nylita



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternative Universe - No Island, Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Lies, Mystery, Sassy Felicity, Secrets, Slow Burn, The Hood - Freeform, grumpy oliver
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-16 01:50:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5808679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nylita/pseuds/Nylita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How could only 1 night, 2 bad decisions, 3 regrets, 4 stumbles and 5 bruises lead to this?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bad Decisions

**Girl Like You**

I've never known a girl like you before  
Now just like in a song from days of yore  
Here you come a knockin', knockin' on my door  
And I've never met a girl like you before

You give me just a taste so I want more and more  
Now my hands are bleeding and my knees are raw  
Cause now you've got me crawlin', crawlin' on the floor  
And I've never known a girl like you before

You've made me acknowledge the devil in me  
I hope to God I'm talkin' metaphorically  
Hope that I'm talkin' allegorically  
Know that I'm talkin' about the way I feel  
And I've never known a girl like you before  
Never, never, never, never  
Never known a girl like you before

This old town's changed so much  
Don't feel like I belong  
Too many protest singers  
Not enough protest songs  
And now you've come along  
Yes you've come along  
_And I've never met a girl like you before_

 

By the looks of it, the day should be going as normal. The sunlight was dashing shadows, like an artist would their canvas across Felicity's hair that gleamed golden in the splattered light. There were no signs of bad weather such as stormy clouds or thunder, which (as everyone knows) are bad omens. There were no sinister crows flying around in mobs of ten, sprinkling bad luck over the heads of walking people. Neither was there a black cat anywhere and she hadn't broken a mirror recently. So, if you read the signs, it should be a perfectly pleasant day.

Oh, boy, was she wrong.

**_30 minutes before fatal mistake_ **

"I am done," Felicity declared happily, shutting off her computer with a satisfied smile.

"I hate you," Sara grumbled. Lyla muttered something in unison.

"Don't hate me. I can help you."

Sara threw a marshmallow at her. "I don't need your pity. Now get off your butt and go home. It's your turn to cook anyway."

Putting her computer inside her backpack, Felicity eyed her over the heap of candy wrappers and empty energy drinks. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. We're sure. Right, Lyla?" Sara asked Lyla, nudging her in the side. Lyla jabbed Sara right back, much harder than required and smiled, but never let her eyes leave the page she was currently squinting at. "Yes, totally good. Nothing but good here. Good."

"Okay, I'll come get you in an hour. The pizza will be waiting."

 _"Pizza,"_  Lyla sighed longingly, her eyes almost getting crossed in her attempt to keep the focus on the computer screen.

"Is she high?" Felicity asked loudly behind her back. Sara cocked her head as in a yes-maybe-who-knows kind of way. Just to play it safe, Felicity pocketed the last of the energy drinks. "This is for your own good," she reminded. At that Lyla's head snapped up, and her stare made Felicity take an involuntary step back.

"Give me those," Lyla all but growled, her blue eyes turning into slits of focused fury stemming from cramming for a particular gruelling exam. It was a haunting sight and much more common than one would think when it came to college students. Felicity did what any sane and normal person would do faced with the amount of explosive power that could exist inside a thin brunette starved of basic necessities like bathroom breaks and toothbrushes. She ducked behind the nearest shelf and ran for her life.

"Run, Smoakie, run!" she could hear Sara cry after her in an attempt to cheer her on. Or maybe to encourage her to not trip over her own feet if Lyla indeed had given chase. Felicity dared a glance behind her after she'd passed the entrance and the locomotive that was Lyla Michaels was nowhere to be seen. Slowing down to a walk, Felicity hummed to herself as she opened the door out of the MIT building and started to cross the dew-covered lawn.

It really was an amazing night. The wind was cold and fresh and woke her up more than all of those energy drinks had put together. The grass beneath her feet turned into pavement that in turn turned into dirt since the short cut was crossing at the margin of the woods. She'd walked here so many times before that the darkness didn't really bother her. Even if she'd been blind, she'd find the way home. As if to take away her self-assurance, Felicity tripped in that moment on a root and fell flat faced into the dirt.

"Ouch," she muttered, feeling earth dig itself up her nose.

Placing her now scratched palms against the ground, she pushed herself into a sitting position. Brushing off her large hoodie on which the print said: **I SPEAKO ANGLISH**  in bold blue letters, Felicity was grateful at least that her baby had been fine. She patted the backpack just to make sure. Her glasses, however, wasn't. They weren't broken, thank god - she couldn't afford a new pair right now - but they were extremely dirty. She wiped them vigorously for a few minutes on the part of her hoodie that wasn't smeared with damp brown dirt. Her world looked a little foggy, she found out, squinting behind the glasses but it wasn't too bad. Just as she was about to push herself up from the ground and trek the rest of the way home, something caught her eye.

She turned towards the park and the back of the houses. There wasn't anyone she could see and all the alleys were quiet and dark. It was probably nothing, she said to herself, rising to her feet. But as she lifted up the backpack, she saw it again. There was something moving through one of the farthest away street lights, flickering in and out. What was that?

She took a few steps closer, trying to make out what was moving so fast and then, when more shapes started to move, she understood. The backpack slipped from her hand; her fingers moved by themselves as they dug for the cellphone in the back pocket while her legs were busy running at top speed. She stumbled down the hill and ducked beneath the chained sign stating: **No Unauthorised Persons Beyond This Point!** She ran through the fenced alley, while her fingers dialled 9-1-1. The signals seemed to drag out forever until a male voice greeted her calmly.

"9-1-1, what's your emergency?"

"Someone's getting beaten to death down by Crows Park!" she screamed into the phone, finally reaching the end of the alley. Felicity lurched to a stop, hiding behind a large trash can.

"Tell me what you see," the voice exhorted in her ear.

She did as instructed, peaking over to see what was happening but it was impossible to make out anything except someone getting brutally kicked.

"I don't see anything!" she whispered as urgently as she could. "Please, hurry!"

"A patrol is on their way."

"One?" Felicity echoed.

"Yes."  
  
"How long?" she asked, already dreading the answer.

"They are 8 minutes out."

Felicity felt how her adrenaline started to pump when she realized what she must do.

"Tell them to send an ambulance," was her final plea before she disconnected the call and stepped out from her protective trash can.

_**Fatal mistake in three, two, one**..._

"Hey!" she yelled loudly.

Now when she'd stepped into the light and could see clearly, and also since the fight slowed down by her impromptu presence, she noticed that their was one guy lying on the ground. And there were four around him, all of them big as quarterbacks.

Sometimes, most of the time, in fact, Felicity wished for a private opera singer. One who would act as a pop-up book every time she was about to make a really bad decision. He would then proceed to serenade her, singing in a high C the word: _MISTAAAAAAAAAKE._ It would be utilized in her everyday life most eagerly since she had a brain and a mouth that really hadn't gripped notions like; smooth, or non-embarrassing. But right now, one flash of a second after she'd called out, she desperately wished she'd had that opera man serenade her earlier. It would have saved her the uncomfortable feeling of healthy self-preservation coursing through her stiff body when her cry made two of the four bullies look up at her. She realized that in her panda flats, red polka dotted pants, glasses and ponytail, she looked a whole lot more like a victim than a saviour. According to how the creeps snickered, they thought so too. This was not going well.

The two of them, the once that had interrupted their little Wednesday amusement of torturing someone, were slowly coming towards her. Felicity pulled her phone in front of her like a shield.

"I've called the police. They'll be here any second."

The bigger of the two, though both were large, flirting with huge, winked at her when she'd finished.

"Well, that's a shame, pretty," he said in a leering voice that made her insides want to puke. "Guess we have to wrap it up, boys!" he called over his shoulder but he never turned enough to break the contact his eyes had with her legs.

This really wasn't going well. Felicity saw how the second guy who had walked towards her started to turn back. She had to do something. Anything! Her mind zeroed in on distraction and reminded her of what she had in her pockets. She acted on what was hopefully a strike of genius. Before the sleazebag could take another step in her direction, she pulled out one of the energy drinks she's stolen earlier and hurled it as hard as she could. Genius struck, as in struck the sleazebag in the jaw, making him bend and yelp in pain. 

While he was busy being injured, Felicity took out the other can, this time aiming. It struck him on the crown of the head, effectively making him fall onto the pavement without a sound.

"Yes!" she cried out happily right before the rest of her breath got stuck. Forgetting for one second that she didn't have time for a victory dance, was apparently one second too long. Felicity only had time to register movement to her right before someone's hands were around her throat. She panicked, ripping at the hands and kicking to get loose. It didn't work and the guy, who was the slightly smaller guy from before, looked absolutely ready to kill her on the spot.

The realization of that gave her another jolt of adrenaline. Her nails bit into his hands and when she found his pinkie, she pulled until it cracked disturbingly. Finally, he let go with a howl. Felicity coughed like a chain smoker, trying to get precious oxygen down to her lungs. Just as she had got one whole intake of glorious air, a hard fist struck her right across the cheekbone and she smacked into the ground. The pain felt like a bomb ignited inside her bone, shattering it into million pieces. She cried out in shock and pain but kept her arms over her face, quickly rolling to the side in case the bastard got the idea in his head that she would make a good rug.

The guy was lacking in imagination since he decided to kick her instead. How original. But it felt pretty novel to her when the pain in her face turned into a smidge, a dirty speck on the pain scale. His old sneaker sunk deep into her stomach, making her feel like it was actually inside her. It was enough to make her loose her air, feeling how it drained from her lungs. Felicity gasped, fighting to get her breath. But in the back of her head, she was just waiting for the next strike. Strangely enough, it never came. Around her, she could hear how punches were distributed with a steady rhythm. The groans of that poor guy on the ground sounded horrible when she heard them through the fog of her own haze. Felicity wanted to look but she was too afraid of what she's see. If she could lift her arms, she would have covered her ears too. The sounds were jolting her insides. Every sharp groan ricocheting against her, until it felt like someone was kicking her again. 

At last, the moans and pained whines turned into silence.

Felicity waited, her head down on the pavement, for the victors to come and finish what they'd started. But as the seconds passed and there was nothing but silence, she forced her unwilling head to move. When she viewed her surroundings, it struck her as rather strange. There were four bodies lying in her proximity. She could only recognize the two she'd seen face to face but she'd bet her money on all four of them being that gang. So how were all of them knocked out? Where was the victim? She pushed herself up on her forearms, searching for the fifth body when she saw a figure standing in the shadow by one of the alleys. He had blood all over his face and his eye seemed swollen shut. A deep gash ran across his cheek. His whole body was stiff, rigid even. He didn't seem at all as exhausted as she felt. It was only now, Felicity realized that she was blatantly staring at him, and he was staring back, had been staring even before she was aware of his presence. She couldn't pry her eyes away from him, waiting for his reaction to all of this.

He seemed like he was waiting for something himself. Still motionless, he stood unwavering until the wait was seemingly over. Despite an obvious limp, he made it to her very quickly. Wordlessly, he offered his hand to her. Felicity's gaze wandered between his mangled face and his almost equally mangled hand and took it. She was quickly on her feet, standing, well, swaying, on the spot.

Seeing her unsteady, he clasped her wrist to support her. At least that was what Felicity thought he was doing before she was suddenly tugged behind him like a toy dog. He walked with an intensity seldom displayed anywhere except those determined to win an Olympic racewalking competition or with those who really need to go to the bathroom.

"Hey, what are you doing?" she asked, as gently as she could in case he was some sort of walking deviant.

"It's not safe," was his very vague explanation.

"But what about the police?" Felicity exclaimed.

"There might be more of them," he replied, not stopping or looking back.

"But the police have guns," she tried again, reasoning with the crazy person.

As sudden as he'd appeared in front of her, he wheeled on her, his sharp eyes, eye in this instance, boring into hers. It was much how she'd imagined staring into the Cyclops' eye in the odyssey would have felt like.

"If you want to live past tonight, come with me. If not, then I don't need the dead weight anyway," the Cyclops bit off.

Her wrist was suddenly free, holding suspended in the air by her will alone.

"Who are you?" she questioned, and with some right to know, if he wanted to know her opinion. But Felicity had a feeling Cyclops wasn't really interested in what her opinion about that was. He didn't really seem that concerned for her as a being.

At that obviously audacious question, Cyclops turned back to where he'd been headed and strode away, leaving her behind. Felicity glanced behind her, at the warm sheen coming from the Crows Parks entry lights. It illuminated a small trail of blood and a heap of bodies that would certainly wake up soon. As if to give her estimation skills some credit, one of them started to moan in pain.

With a lot of doubts, even more question and a voice in her head that was berating her in an high C over how stupid and careless she'd been, Felicity rushed after the both stranger and obviously strange guy into the darkness that had enveloped him in its blanket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there. Just wanted to give you all a heads up that the rating will most likely be bumped up as the story progresses.  
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed it :)


	2. Into the Woods

**The Enemy**

Give me hope in silence  
It's easier; It's kinder  
Tell me not of heartbreak  
It plagues my soul, plagues my soul  
We will meet back on this road  
Nothing gaining, truth be told  
But I am not the enemy  
it isn't me, the enemy

But I came and I was nothing  
And time will give us nothing  
So why did you choose to lean on  
A man you knew was falling?

Give me hope in silence  
It's easier; It's kinder  
Tell me not of heartbreak  
It plagues my soul, plagues my soul  
And bury me beside you  
I have no hope  
In solitude  
And the world will follow  
To the earth down below

But I came and I was nothing  
And time will give us nothing  
So why did you choose to lean on  
_A man you knew was falling?_

 

Felicity stumbled for the fourth time. This one was a tree stump.

"Ouch," she muttered under her breath as she felt how a bruise started to bloom on her left shin. After this night, she'd look like she'd been through hell and back. Her stomach was throbbing with every step she took and her face stung when the soft breeze blew through the thick leaves and played with her hair. Sometime during the night her usual ponytail had either loosened or the hair tie had snapped completely, she didn't really know, leaving her with a bush of hair getting wilder and filled with twigs as she followed Cyclops through yet another dense thicket. Every time she tried to brush it back from her face her fingers ghosted over the neck and she flinched, every single time. It still felt pressed together, like that guy's hands were laced around her neck. Felicity swallowed down the flashbacks that beckoned. Now wasn't the time to think about what could have happened. That had to come later, when they were in guaranteed safety. But it wasn't only the survival instinct in her that drove her to keep following in Cyclops footsteps even after 30 minutes of complete silence. She was stupidly curious about him and what had gone down tonight. And she needed to get some answers. Especially if the psycho gang were residences in the area. What would happen if she'd meet them again? That, and the fact that he was quite unpredictable were the reasons she hadn't complained so far, which she thought earned her some points. The Cyclop wasn't so generous.

"Can we please stop?" Felicity finally pleaded in a voice that was weak and squeaky from the fast pace. This might be a stroll in the woods for him, a dark stroll in the pitch-black woods never the less, but the biggest problem was that his walking equalled her running.

Felicity wasn't completely sure, but it felt like he'd picked up speed as soon as she'd opened her mouth.

"That's not stopping," she noted and Cyclops started to power-walk.

She narrowed her eyes at his back. If he wouldn't be out of range, she definitely would have kicked him. Maybe if he was limping on the other leg too, he'd listen to her. Then he wouldn't have any other choice since he would no longer be able to out-walk her. The thought warmed her. But since he was out of range and her innocent attempt to incapacitate him further would most surely go over as well as one could presume, she abandoned the notion, albeit reluctantly. The probability of him turning Mr Hyde on her was a staggering 99,9 percent according to Felicity's calculations. It wasn't worth it. She settled for talking him to death instead.

"Are you sure you know where you're going? It's really dark; I can barely see my hand. How come you know where you're going? What are your thoughts on the whole 'Merry Christmas' versus 'Happy Holidays?' 'Cause I'm Jewish and I have to say it's really nice to be included. Are you religious? My mom is Jewish so it was just natural for me to belong to Judaism too. But maybe you don't like talking about religion. It can be quite the controversial subject. Do you have something else you'd like to discuss?" She didn't pause to let him get a word in. Not that he tried. "No? Okay. I notice you're not a chatty person. That's okay. I can talk for the both of us."

Felicity kept chattering on while they climbed the path that had turned up towards the night sky.

She'd just arrived at describing his funny style of walking when something changed.

"... you look like you've been doing one too many squats, or ridden a horse for eight hours straight, but you're still faster than me. Which is really unfair by my estimate. But then again, you have longer legs than me," she concluded, right as she almost smashed into him when he made an abrupt stop. Taken by surprise, she eyed him up and down while he did an impression of a scouting eagle.

"On second thought," Felicity said when his imposing height shaded the new moon from above. "I think your legs are taller  _than_ me."

Cyclops started stalking west without acknowledging her existence and with a brand new breakneck speed. The new tempo made it impossible for her to keep babbling. She'd bet her sweet behind that he did it to shut her up. It was effective, she had to give him that.

After another few minutes of striding filled with nothing but her gradually heavier breathing, Felicity contemplated sleeping under a tree. _Wonder if he'd noticed_ , she pondered. A minute later when she actually fell, this time the perpetrator a slippery pine cone, she had her answer when he didn't even look back at her very loud "oumph."

After she struggled to her feet, she caught up to him after a good thirty seconds. She panted like someone who'd just reached the surface after being on the brink of drowning.

"Okay, seriously." Felicity paused for a second to suck in some air. "I don't know what kind of person you are but I'm not a runner. I'm not athletic. I'm more of a: 'don't move unless absolutely necessary' person."

It tasted blood in her mouth.

He spoke.

"Keep up."

Hallelujah.

Her chest heaved as she tried to speak but choked on the excessive saliva that was about to spill over her chin. Why did people do this? Voluntarily? They had to be insane. But not as insane as her sprinting behind someone who had the verbal expressiveness of a donkey.

"That's-" she took a hysteric breath "-not-" another one "-an-" she started to see spots "-answer."

Just as she was about to give him her Oscar worthy impression of a dying runner, he stopped. Felicity was so overjoyed and her legs were shaking to the degree of wobbling so she hugged him from behind, using him both as an instrument of standing but also hugging him out of pure joy that came from surviving these kinds of ordeals.

"Thank you, lord," she mumbled against his dirty jacket that smelled like heaven right now.

Taking no notice of her, Cyclops started to walk. Since one set of her limbs were currently out of commission and the pair that were halfway operational were busy being latched onto him, Felicity simply skidded along behind, not really having the energy to care where he was going as long as it involved a sitting-friendly ground. Or unfriendly. As long as she could place her butt somewhere, she'd be more than happy. That kind of naive thinking lost some of it's novelty as her eyes sprung open wide at the sound of a rusty door being forced open. She leaned her head out to the side and saw how the guy she was currently plastered onto was walking inside something that would make Stephen King proud. Creepy wasn't even covering past the threshold. The whole thing was screaming bad, _bad_ , idea.

"Uhm ..." she started to say, not really sure how to finish the sentence. "Do you live here?"

There we go.

He didn't answer this time either, surprise, surprise. Instead he walked inside and Felicity dropped off a step behind him. She felt a little woozy but not entirely unself-reliant which was really good considering that the guy closed the door in her face. She stared at the rust eating its way across the door handle. That 'in her face' part took a little while to process.

"Uhm ... hello?" she said to the door.

No answer except the wind. Was he part time mute?

"You ... the guy - you know who you are - ehm .... I was just wondering if you're coming out."

No answer yet again.

Great. Awesome. Fantastic.

Felicity looked around her. The woods were thick, the trees looming. There was only a sliver of the moon visible, which gave an even more sinister look to her current whereabouts than if it hadn't been visible, and to top it off the stars were clouded. It was also pitch-black. Just her luck, with the added bonus of maybe having a bunch of crazy guys in the creepy woods looking for her or one crazy guy inside a creepy shack. She didn't have to think about it long, especially when she heard something snap behind her and she jumped comically high. Creepy shack it is. She knocked, since being polite is important, and then she opened the door. Until it wouldn't go any farther. It left a gap that maybe her foot could pass through. It could - she tried. Jumping a little on the spot, shaking out her arms, loosening the muscles, she readied herself to fling her body against the door. Taking aim at the ancient scrawny wood, Felicity then rammed her shoulder into the surprisingly sturdy door. To say it hurt would be an understatement.

"Mother's ass!" she cried out, holding onto her shoulder with one hand.

While she whimpered the door finally gave way when a pair of worn boots arrived behind it. Cyclops stood there, not inviting by anyone's measurements but he'd at least opened the door. That was something.

"Did you close the door because I hugged you?" she asked, having a sneaking suspicion that was the case. “Because that was nothing personal. I would have hugged anyone there, even Hitler.” Oh, and here comes the babbling. A part of her always detached when this was about to happen. She knew it before it blurted out, but she was helpless to stop it. “I mean, not Hitler, _Hitler._ ” Oh, god, what was she saying? “'Cause he was responsible for genocide, you know.” There was an awkward intake of breath as she caught onto what she'd just said. “Of course you know! I'm not implying that you're uneducated or anything but what I meant was that …" Felicity swallowed. "I'm sorry for hugging you?”

She waited for some kind of reaction to her epic meltdown but nothing happened. He didn't even grunt. He just closed the door behind her when she took the one step needed, locked it with a bolt that looked twice the age of herself and then led the way into the only room. The guy sunk down on the floor and settled back against a broken freezer. Felicity held her shoulder tightly while she sat down on the one spot that seemed to be free of spider webs.

"It's cosy," she tried to compliment but it got lost when something crawled over her leg. With a loud yelp she kicked off a cockroach that seemed to have confused the polka dots with friends.

"I take it back," she whispered, pulling her legs up as shields for other creepy crawlers.

Felicity covertly scoped out the surroundings. The interior decorations and most of the floor were covered with a bed of dust that was so thick it almost felt like she was sitting on a cushion. She could see their footprints from the door that had disturbed the smooth surface. The colour beneath was indistinguishable. She could however feel that the floor was made of wood by how it scraped under her shoes and also by how it creaked when she shifted. There were only two windows and they were both on her right side. Cyclops was staring out the one missing a pane.

When she could relax enough to lean back against a bureau that was lacking three out of four legs, she addressed him.

"So, why are we crushing in an abandon shack that is straight out of The Blair Witch Project?"

He didn't look back at her when he answered. "We might have been followed."

She cocked her head questioningly. "So, we'll just wait them out?"

He didn't answer but he tensed his jaw. Possibly a yes.

That didn't sound like a brilliant plan. Not even that much of a plan. It was an awful lot like hiding, according to her reasoning. They would be sitting ducks, literally, if they were found. And she told him as much. He was non-responsive. There was only one way out - through the door. Although, the walls whined every time the wind faintly blew so if push came to shove, Cyclops could probably blow a hole straight through one of them. His shoulders seemed capable enough.

Felicity waited patiently for him to elaborate, to no avail, as they sat on the dusty floor with surely spiders as a complement to the cockroaches already crawling around them. Felicity shivered slightly, pulling her hoodie closer.

"Felicity," she mumbled finally, when another ten minutes had passed.

"What?" he said, making it sound more like a sigh than a question.

She was not discouraged by his lack of enthusiasm, or basic human expressions. "That's my name. Felicity. What's yours?" 

Only the slightest moonlight came crushing through the dirty pane but she could see his one still functioning eye - deep black - turning towards her. She tried to smile but it strained on her face. It was beginning to dawn on her that sitting alone, in an abandon building, with an exceptional strange guy that had a bloodied and messed up face wasn't her best idea. Actually it broke top ten of worst ideas she'd ever had. Depending on the following sentence exchange, maybe top five. 

Well, Felicity had at least hoped he would give her something to add to the list, to help her decide how bad this was on the scale, but as she'd quickly picked up, this very capable beat down guy mostly communicated by ominous silences and tightening of various facial features. It wasn't comforting. "Look, if we are going to be stuck here together and possibly die if the wannabe droogs finds us, I'd like to know your name. That way I can address you and also curse you later if I die."

A pregnant silence fell for a second, joined with the uneasy knowledge that he had ploughed several men into oblivion while she was busy being semi-unconscious. His busted knuckles spoke of that.

"Hood," he finally grumbled, barely moving his lips.

Felicity couldn't help but raise her eyebrows and scoff. "Hood? Really? You're a terrible liar, if you didn't know. Next time someone saves your ass, tell them your name is John Smith. That is at least statistically possible."

"Take it or leave it," was his response before he closed up again to look out that tiny scrap of a window.

Tapping her feet on the floor in an attempt to keep warm, Felicity studied him cautiously, only stealing glances when he was sure to miss them. "So, what do you do, _Hood?_ " she said silvery, pressing on that ridiculous cover-up name. 

Stony silence ensued. 

"Well, since you asked, I myself study. I'm a student at MIT. If you ever need someone to hack something, I'm your girl."

"You're a hacker?" he said, his voice a tad more of a question than a grumble.

Felicity narrowed her eyes at his obvious display of doubt. "Yes, I am."

"I guess the whole goody two shoes ensemble is just a costume then?" he basically sneered, contempt oozing from the words. 

"Jeez, next time I think about helping someone I'll remember this moment fondly. I'll tell them: no, I cannot save your life tonight. Last time I got stuck with Norman Bates - only with less mommy issues - and ended up sleeping in a shack that probably housed tarantulas, and I will never put myself in that situation again," she bit back.

That shut down what little conversation he had in him. They remained quiet and still for at least twenty minutes until "Hood" actually spoke first.

"I think it's safe."

Felicity sprung from the floor, despite her leg that had either frozen to ice or simply fallen asleep. She'd find out soon enough. Hood took a little longer. His elbow wobbled over his palm before he managed to push himself halfway up. It was the first time she saw that his jacket was torn sharply with something edgy. Possibly the small glass shard that still stuck out of the wound. Most likely. Felicity couldn't help her quick inhale as she saw how the blood slipped down his arm in two flumes, like it was a river and the shard a protruding rock. 

"You're hurt!" she exclaimed.

"I don't need to be told that," he spit.

Of course he wouldn't let the opportunity of yet another chance of rudeness pass him by. Felicity ignored his gibe and took a step forward. "Let me help you."

Before he had a chance to say more than a muttered "no," she pulled out the shard. Which might have been a mistake since the small trickle turned into a rivulet.

"Should I not have done that?" she asked him a little panicky. His only response was a low whine. She quickly dropped the disgusting shard on the floor where it clinked and then, recalling every hospital show she'd ever watched, Felicity pulled off the thin scarf around her neck and neatly tied it around the wound. It needed to be layered a few times but in the end nothing scarlet seeped out of the transparent fabric. Satisfied with her work and immensely grateful that she hadn't accidental drained him by tugging out his glass-buddy, she backed away but not before patting the improvised bandage.

“There we go,” she said before remembering that patting newly severed skin maybe wasn't the best thing. She glanced up at Hood, gosh what a ridiculous fake name, and found him way too close for comfort. He looked absolutely horrendous and not very grateful for her saving his life.

“Don't touch me,” he gritted out between his teeth.

Felicity quickly retracted her hand and placed herself at a more comfortable distance. Which proved to be the spot right next to him since the cluttered space wasn't very big. “You got it, amigo. No problemo.”

He stalked past her towards the door and opened it wide. Felicity slunk after his giant form, keeping close. She was not about to spend a night with that cockroach. Not a chance.

“So-” she said, when she once again had to run to keep up with his legs. "-who were those people back there?”

A ten seconds delay occurred. Hood was clearly on a bad Skype connection.

“Bar brawl,” he muttered.

She rolled her eyes at yet another lie. How many was that already?

“What did you do, beat them in pool?” she asked sarcastically.

“Something like that,” was his cryptic answer. Was he ever anything but cryptic? Every romance novel she'd ever read had lied to her and every person since the dawn of time. Meeting a stranger in a chance encounter, that inhibits both cryptic and downright rude characteristics isn't, nor will it ever be, sexy or mysterious. It's just irritating and makes someone think about beating someone else over the head with a big stick that by accident is right in that someone's reach.

“Really? I hadn't pegged you for the hustling type.”

A branch smacked Felicity in the face when they waded through the thick underbrush. It felt intentional. “But that's why they attacked you? For money?”

She took his silence as a yes - the liar. “Hood, there's no bars around there.”

If silence could become more silence-y then he'd done it. It was so quiet that she could hear the leaves falling from the balding trees.

“Why do you keep lying to me?”

One of his by now patented quick lurched happened and he turned around. Felicity could barely make out his face in the darkness. She took a step back to keep away from his unpredictable temper and also to be able to run in the other direction if he decided to silence her once and for all. It seemed like he'd contemplated just that for the last half hour or so, if the glares were any indications. He surprised her by speaking. 

“Look over there,” Hood ordered, raising his hand at where they'd come from. Relieved and curious, Felicity turned around, trying to see what he meant. “Do you see that bright spot?”

She focused intently into the frankly sucking darkness. “Wha-”

The body behind her bolted. He bolted like a horse. 

One second he was there and the next he ran away from her as fast as he could. Felicity was so stunned, she didn't even try to run after. She simply stood there, blinking at where he had been a second ago.

What the hell? What the actual hell? 

Felicity closed her slightly gaping mouth. 

_Really?_

He'd abandoned her, in the middle of the woods. His saviour. And he _ran_ from her like the devil was chasing him. This was simply perfect. Perfect- “Perfect,” she cursed, spitting out the word as she started to stalk towards the direction she thought was the one he'd taken. “This is the thanks I get, huh?” she yelled to the stupid trees. “I saved your ass, you stupid, ungrateful, douchebag!” The woods mocked her anger by being silent. She couldn't hear anything except her own agitated breathing. "This is the last time I'm doing anything nice for anyone ever again," Felicity promised herself aloud. Her anger as she stomped past trees and through vegetation distracted her enough that she didn't realise that the tree line was thinning. A light started to pierce the darkness and a few seconds later Felicity wound up right by the side of an deserted exercise trail. 

She'd made it.

Civilisation. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two. Took me forever, I know.  
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed it :)


	3. Hospital

**Beat It**  

They told him, "Don't you ever come around here.  
Don't wanna see your face. You better disappear."  
The fire's in their eyes and their words are really clear  
So beat it, just beat it

You better run, you better do what you can  
Don't wanna see no blood, don't be a macho man  
You wanna be tough, better do what you can  
So beat it, but you wanna be bad

Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it  
No one wants to be defeated  
Showin' how funky strong is your fight  
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right

Just beat it, beat it

Just beat it, beat it

Just beat it, beat it

Just beat it, beat it

They're out to get you, better leave while you can  
Don't wanna be a boy, you wanna be a man  
You wanna stay alive, better do what you can  
So beat it, just beat it

You have to show them that you're really not scared  
You're playin' with your life, this ain't no truth or dare  
They'll kick you, then they beat you, then they'll tell you it's fair  
So beat it, but you wanna be bad

Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it  
No one wants to be defeated  
Showin' how funky strong is your fight  
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right

Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it

Beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it  
No one wants to be defeated  
Showin' how funky strong is your fight  
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right

Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it  
No one wants to be defeated  
Showin' how funky strong is your fight  
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right

Just beat it, beat it  
_Beat it, beat it, beat it_

 

Civilisation wasn't all it was cracked up to be. 

Felicity, very close to dying right then and there, felt cheated and hopelessness followed in its track. There were no people greeting her, she, the person who had walked through purgatory and come out on the other end, had to settle for an empty trail with leaves that had frozen beneath her feet, mimicking tauntingly the paved road she so desperately wanted to reach. She stopped for a second, took a deep breath, and kept her body from crumbling. It wasn't exactly her pride or dignity that stopped her from laying down and die - she'd lost them somewhere between contemplating eating a spider and chopping of her numb feet. No, it was her last bit of pigheadedness. She hadn't made plans on spending her night licking dirt when she woke up this morning and damn it to hell, she wasn't about to change the schedule.

Rain started to dribble down now when she was standing unprotected on the top of the small ridge overlooking the exercise trail. A trail that slithered farther into the thick forest; a black worm digging its way through.

"I hate my life," Felicity cursed, looking up accusingly at the sky.

When it kept quietly slopping on her matted hair she started making her way down the steep edge to cross the ditch and at last get on an open road. It was difficult navigating through the dark. The lights around the trail were sparse and the earth beneath her feet was frozen hard, causing her flats to lose their grips and she tumbled down the short incline.

The landing was sounded with a heavy thud. Moaning, and rolling around on her back, she felt a sting on her shin. Skimming her fingers over the leg, they met a bare wet spot. Felicity looked up to the sky again.

"What have I done to offend you?" she demanded. "I'm bleeding, and my pants are broken, and I'm probably going to die of frostbite."

She rose angrily and wiped of her clothes with rigid movements, even going as far as shaking a fist at the heavens. 

"Thanks for nothing!"

Standing at the bottom, a short stature against the enormous pine trees rising in the backdrop, she mulled over the situation in front of her with the collected maturity of all of her twenty-one years.

Felicity started to mumble questionable things under her breath.

The ditch, which she could only discern from how it reflected the little light that reached this far in, was a wide coal black hole filled with rainwater. She stood on the bottom of a steep bank with nowhere to go except back up again or across. Turning back was no option; she didn't have the energy for it. But it was hard to accept the very real possibility of getting drenched on top of everything else, so she took a second to draw her aching limbs together into some sort of 'horse about to jump a fence' pose.   

"Okay," she said. "I might be stuck in the woods, but I'm not getting wet. You are the master of your faith and all that crap."

She thumped her cold leg with a fist to wake it up.

"You will jump," she explained firmly to it, chiding it so that it wouldn't fail her.

Felicity moved backwards until her heel touched dirt, lifted her elbows back to the earth that rose behind her like a cliff and prepared to use it as a launching pad. In total silence she pushed away, took one giant step and then leaped.

She soared like a bird over the vast darkness.

The only problem was that she soared like a penguin. And just like a penguin, she couldn't fly.

Landing on her feet, but all out of luck, she was soaked to the calves. Slippery gunk and other yuckiness she had no idea of what they were, but by texture alone she'd guess octopus, soaked into the soles of her flats and poured over the low edges. Dirty water chilled her toes and bones. Wading forward on the unsteady bottom, heaving her body over the ditch with little finesse, Felicity huffed to herself, “I hope he falls down a pit and gets eaten by a bear.”

The steep, gravelly edge of the other side met her knee to knee when she started to crawl up. It was an exact copy of the other bank she had fallen down except the incline being even more straight. It felt like trying to climb Mount Everest, if Mount Everest was hell. The wet soles and loose dirt moved beneath her feet, twisting them, and before she had time to react, her footing slipped and slid.

This time she landed on her butt.

If she'd had the energy, she'd scream. It smelled of stagnant, mucky water and mud. Right by her hand there was an empty soda can floating. For a second, she sat in silence, letting it all sink in, both in mind and pants. Then she put her palms down into the, by now, freezing water and pushed herself up from the ditch that had to be godforsaken. The gravel beneath her fingers was even more slippery now but she made it unto the trail, scrawling up by tooth and nail. Finally standing on firm ground she huddled, feeling the cold more acutely this time around.

Her legs felt like they burning. Felicity glanced down just to make sure they hadn't spontaneously combusted.

They hadn't, and she continued on her last train of thoughts, teeth smacking convulsively. “A pa-ck of b-bears. With bl-lunt tee-th. So they ha-have to  _grind_ hi-i-im in h-half.”

She made forward with all of the grace of a newborn giraffe, chancing to go left. 

The trail on which she had finally risen from the long departed was flat and not very long. It didn't take her more than ten minutes of cursing and loud trembling, as her jaws clamped together involuntarily, to reach the end of it. When she heard the sounds of distant cars she hustled the last yards. At last there was pavement under her feet. If she hadn't been so dehydrated from all the sweating and anxiety she would have cried.

Felicity dropped down on the chilly ground, feeling her every bone ache with exhaustion. Her hair sort of ached too, if that was even possible. Hugging her knees to her chest, trying to generate some warmth, she wiggled up her phone from the back pocket. It was slightly damp, the screen had a crack in it and a leaf was stuck to the back, but the display lit up, showing the ugliest baby anyone had ever seen. 

She pressed speed dial number three and held the phone to her ear.

The recipient answered on the first ring.

“Felicity?!” Lyla cried frantically into the receiver.

“Lyla!” Felicity howled, clutching the phone like a lifeline.

There was some scuffle in the background and Felicity heard how Lyla hissed, “Stop pushing, Sara!”

Another voice was a sharp cry cutting through the noise, but before Felicity could hear what Sara was saying Lyla hissed again, “Shut up!” A moment after, she was back again.

“Are you okay?!" she demanded. Before Felicity had time to answer, Lyla barrelled on. "Where the hell have you been? We were so worried! We were this close to calling the police ..."

Felicity knew that Lyla was right at that moment measuring up a distance between her thumb and index finger to indicate exactly how close they had indeed been. The slight pause told her so. The agreeing cry from the background told her how worried she'd made them.

"It's three a.m.!”

Felicity nodded at the empty parking lot where she was sitting, eyeing the shape of a bench that was too far away to be worth the effort. 

“I'm okay,” she assured with as much calm as she had left to muster. Calm was a bit of a shortage tonight. Confusion, anger and fear however, were in abundance. “My phone was off since the library. Can you guys come pick me up?”

Lyla's delivery was rapid like a buzzer question. “Where are you? We were already in the car searching when you called.”

Felicity's lip started to tremble. She put her hand to support her chin, keeping it together.

“You were searching for me?” she accidentally burst out. It wasn't supposed to have the desperate tinge that her feelings were swimming in. Laughter bubbled up at the whole situation, as unwanted as it was hilarious.

“Yes,” Lyla said cautiously into her ear. “I'll let Sara talk while I drive. Is that okay?”

Giggling, Felicity spluttered, "Su-sure."

There was some argument happening on the other side of the phone a few moments before Sara's comforting voice came on. The familiar sound made the dew-wet asphalt beneath Felicity's backside feel slightly warmer.

“Hey, sweetie. Can you tell me where you are?”

Swiping at her eyes where tears were spilling from laughter, Felicity tried to focus.

“I-I'm at the ... the trail."

The information was forwarded with military precision. “She's at North Point.” This time another voice, one she recognised, emerged from the background sounds, taking up after Sara's relay and asked, “What is she doing out there in the middle of the night?”

“Wait," Felicity said. "Is that ...?”

“Yes," Sara answered curtly, not leaving room for questions. "Which entry?”

 "Uhm ..." Felicity looked around the ink black square of pavement that glittered in the beam from the one single streetlight that was currently working from the batch of four that were visible from where she was sitting. The bench, and a worn fireplace on the opposite side surrounded by a wind shelter with graffiti scribbled on its sides in faded blue and yellow layers, were the only things there. Not a lot to go on. Looking around behind her, she saw a bicycle abandoned in the balding grass and a bent sign crookedly stating: **North Point Exercise Trail; watch out for the hedgehogs.**

She smiled when she told Sara where to find her.

Sara, still all business, informed Lyla. “It's where you broke your foot.”

Sara didn't have to tell her what Lyla's answer to that was. Felicity had eardrums after all.

“Now I remember why we don't fight with her.”

“You shouldn't have dared her to kick a boulder.”

Sounding appalled, Sara shot back, “You were the one encouraging her. You even calculated the distance to the sign and told her which angle she had to hit.”

“I was being a friend," Felicity explained redundantly. " _I_ tried to help. _I_ was the one that _carried_ her to the car while you were busy pissing your pants laughing.”

Sara laughed now too. "I do every time I think about it. It's still the best thing I've ever seen.”

“Screw you, Sara," Lyla cursed in the background, accompanied by the sound of a motor revving and a male voice cutting through with shrill intensity.

"That's a stop sign." A feet stomped on car mat. "Stop sign!" A hand slapped on leather seats. "STOP SIGN!" was howled out.

Felicity could swear she heard someone screaming high pitched before Sara, completely unaffected, came back on. "By the way, we've just met Ray."

↔

The walk that had taken at least two hours, excluding the fifty minutes silence in the shack, took Lyla, Sara and apparently Ray, fifteen minutes. The old, once white but not anymore, minuscule car slid on the worn rear end tires when the driver made a sharp ninety degree turn directly at the parking lot and Felicity. It jerked to a stop only a few feet before it made her into a human crash dummy and the backdoor flew open.

“Felly! Baby!” A pair of strong hands pulled her up in an instant and into his arms. Ray's length made her nose squash against his chest when he hugged her tightly. Felicity wiggled her caught arms loose and wound them around his waist. The warmth from him started to defrost her stiff limbs. Another set of arms and then one more collided with her side and back. Sara kissed the back of her dirty head over and over again and Lyla squeezed her as hard as she could with the others in the way.

“You scared us to death,” Sara mumbled.

"Mhm. You're such an idiot," Lyla concurred.

“I'm sorry." Felicity turned in Ray's arm's and hugged both of them as tightly as she could. "Sorry."

From behind, Ray wrapped his grey topcoat around her shoulders. The wool felt heavy and would certainly become heavier as is absorbed the water from where it stopped short of her shoes. "You're cold as ice. And wet," he added.

"I fell," Felicity muttered and Sara laughed before she swept an impatient hand underneath her eyes.

Ray pulled her back into his chest, trapping her in a reverse bear hug. "What happened?"

She stiffened, floundering for a sufficient explanation that wouldn't take the better part of the night to recite. "It's-"

"-a story for later. Get in the car," Lyla interrupted before she started to usher them in that direction, not waiting for agreement. Sara came up behind them and acted as a redundant, but very welcome, support when Ray slipped into the backseat first, ready to help her into the car. Safely inside, resting her head and back against Ray's quite uncomfortable chest - it was too perfect, she suspected - Felicity let her body relax. She remained reclined as he draped Sara's pink fluffy jacket around her legs and padded it with Lyla's leather one. Then Ray finished the packaging with buttoning up his own coat to hold the makeshift patchwork in place before he wrapped his warm arms tightly around her.

"I'm very glad you're okay," he whispered in her ear. Felicity turned her head and he took her chin in his soft hand. It felt a little like her whole head would lift right off with a loud 'pop'.

“Don't do it again.”

 _It wasn't like I did it on purpose,_  she thought briefly when she nodded to pacify him. “Great twelfth date, right?” she opted to say instead.

Ray shook his head at her before angling down for a kiss. But before he could reach her lips, he saw the state of her appearance and changed his mind. "What happened?" he asked again.

As she sat silent in his lap, her butt slimy from so many different textures, Lyla installed her short person in the driver seat and fired up the engine in one movement. Sara came around the hood and got into the front passenger seat. The warmth blazed from the heaters immediately as they started moving. With the characteristic screech inherent to Lyla's driving, the car lurched out of the parking lot and turned left onto the narrow road. There it gained momentum, causing the sensation of flying even though the tires were touching ground, most of the time anyway. 

Now when they were all in the same place, settling down to the sound of the windshield wipers clearing away the small drops of rain, Felicity felt she could answer the questions she knew they had. But it was hard to know where to begin. Luckily for her, Lyla wasn't one for patience.

"Okay. I'm just going to ask. What in the name of holy hell happened tonight? You went to get pizza and then you ... " She paused, seemingly mulling it over in her head before suggesting, "... got kidnapped by aliens?"

It didn't seem impossible that aliens had happened. At least one. One grumpy, asshole of an alien. Felicity looked at Sara and then up at Ray.

"Do you want the short, long or Tolstoy version?"

"I want the non-alien version," Lyla inserted, probably for all of them.

Felicity sat up a little straighter, and in doing so found a slightly worse position, with her head tucked awkwardly beneath Ray's chin.

"Okay. No aliens," she started regardless. "Got it."

She began from where they'd said goodbye. “After the library, I took the shortcut by the woods. I heard some commotion in one of the alleys and ran to see what it was. There was a fight. Four guys were beating up another guy and I called the police.”

Sara, who had until now been busy fiddling between one of the only two radio channels that the stereo accepted - one which played Egyptian rock for some reason and the other that was stuck between static and classical music - twisted in her seat. She'd settled for a rendition of Für Elise that left all the high notes out.  

“And?”

Sometimes it was a really bad thing that they knew her so well. Felicity looked at the back of Lyla's head. _She_ couldn't berate her, thank god. Not while driving at least.

“And I sort of …" She fumbled for the right word; one that would soothe instead of alarm. "... engaged.” Deciding to mumble it, putting her hopes on bad hearing, Felicity quieted down. 

Ray's hand that had been caressing her hair stilled.

That did not bode well.

“You were in a fight?” he asked, way unnecessarily and loud.

Felicity bit her lip before she found out that that was another bad decision. It hurt. But then what didn't hurt right now? Maybe it was best not to go there, she came to realise when pain, which she hadn't noticed in the cold air, nor while stumbling around in the pitch black woods, started to bang on the inside of her head with a hammer to get her attention. And to add insults to her injuries, there was another kind of pulsating atmosphere that started to fill the now very limited space in the very small car.

“Sort of.”

“Felly!” His leg tapped rapidly against the seat, bouncing beneath her.

“I know. It wasn't my brightest hour, but I had to do something or else they would have killed him." There wasn't an argument against that at least. A small comfort, she knew, when it came to the latter part of the story. 

“How did you make it out?” Ray said, obviously confused as to how she could still be in one piece. It was more than a little insulting. As if she couldn't take care of herself.

Felicity wilfully ignored the pain radiating from her stomach when she stiffened in his lap.

“Well," she said curtly, "The guywas apparently some sort off Karate Kid fanatic. He took out three of them while I was busy being _momentarily_ knocked down.” It was important to say that it was only a temporary blackout. 

Ray stiffened too. “How did you get knocked down?”

“I threw Lyla's energy drinks at them and actually K.O:ed one." Her smile flashed quickly before the second part came. "The other got pissed and hit me. A total overreaction if you're asking me.”

Not until now had Sara raised her voice, but now she railed.

_"He hit you?”_

“Yes," Felicity confirmed. "But I'm fine," she hurried to say. "Honestly."

Ray, now taking a firm hold on her shoulders that were resting against his once again, said with authority, “We have to report this.”

She did not want to do that. This wasn't her mess to start with and all she wanted to do was go to sleep and pretend this day had never ever happened. “The police were already coming to the scene."

“What did they say?”

“I don't know. I didn't wait for them," she answered automatically.

Clearly confused, Ray leaned away from her as much as the seat belt would allow him. 

“Why not?”

She looked at him. What was she supposed to say?

“The guy, the one I helped, he was acting super strange and was adamant that we had to leave before they'd wake up.”

“Why?" he frowned, his brows drawing over his eyes. "Didn't he beat them up?”

“Yes, I don't know," she shrugged. There wasn't a good answer to that, not one she had found anyway and certainly not one he had been willing to share. "He didn't seem sane.”

Ray considered that for a moment.

Then he said, “You didn't go with him, did you?”

Felicity hesitated a second to long. He understood, she could see it in his eyes. There was nothing left to do but to shamefully own up to it.

“Uhm … sort off?”

In retrospect, she'd known it was a bad idea to admit it. There was a reason Ray had done all the talking. Both of them had simmered, waiting for the right time to explode. And now she'd accidentally set them both off at the same time, like buried land mines, and she'd somehow managed to step on two.

“FELICITY!” Sara and Lyla yelled simultaneously in an ear deafening cry that made Ray jerk, shoving her away in the process. The car swayed when Lyla snapped her head around. As per routine, Sara's hand shot out and took the wheel. Ray snatched Felicity back across the seat, much tighter against him, bending her head so that his shaved chin was inside her ear. 

“Eyes on the road, Lyla!” he yelped.

“The road is fine, Ray!” she snapped, glaring at Felicity. Unwittingly, Felicity sunk deeper into Ray who was stiff as a plank. His fingers cramped on her arm and she glanced up to see him squeeze his eyes shut.

“I know!” Felicity hurried to appease. Ray's grip wound firmer and harder with each second. “Okay, I know! It was stupid and I won't ever do it again.”

She knew how reckless she'd been. It hadn't exactly slipped her attention, but she blamed the situation, and the adrenaline. And the fact that her pathological curiosity got the best of her in a weak moment.

Lyla glared for another second. “You. Better. Not,” she warned, jutting a finger to punctuate the words before turning back around. Felicity touched Ray's hand and saw how he peaked his eyes open cautiously one by one.

“What happened then?" Sara prompted, keeping to the story, but now without looking at her disapprovingly. "Where did he go?” 

“He told me they would find us so we had to go into the woods. He took me to this abandoned shack and we sat there in complete silence until he deemed it safe for us to leave. Then I asked him what he'd been doing in the alley in the first place and he said he'd been hustling them and that's why they beat him up.”

“There're no bars there," Lyla stated matter-of-factly.

Felicity agreed. “That's what I said to him. Next thing I know he tricks me and takes off."

She saw Sara's confused expression, her face scrunching up and explained.

"I mean, he literally ran from me and disappeared.”

There was a small shock of silence. 

Ray broke it.

“He left you in the woods?”

“Yep. It wasn't that far from the Point. I found the road and called you," she said, directing the last part to Lyla. "You know the rest.”

“You do know how bizarre this sounds, right?” Sara pointed out, giving her a concerned face.

“We need to get you to the hospital,” Ray announced, holding on tightly as Lyla made another flying overtaking. The passed driver, now in their side view mirror growing smaller by the second, honked irritably.  

Felicity squirmed in his hold. “I hate hospitals.”

“We know, sweetie," Sara said soothingly as she reached as far as her arm could and took ahold of one of Felicity's hands. "But we got to.”

Felicity didn't have the strength to argue, not while her head was having a death metal concert and her stomach pounded with the beat of the drums. It was probably for the best to just get it over with. Squeezing Sara's hand, she kept it in her lap when she melted into Ray's warmth, surrendering.

"Alright."

↔

When they were all sitting in the waiting room, fifteen minutes after Lyla had been inches from clipping a corner and Ray had made them all cover their ears with his terrified scream, subsequently making Lyla let go of the wheel and thus missing said corner, Ray was still a bit paler than usual. His large eyes a bit larger too.

“You okay?”

He flinched when she touched him on the shoulder.

“I'm fine,” he mumbled, keeping his eyes where they had stayed since they'd gotten to their seats: fixed on Lyla. It looked like he was anticipating her to start another catastrophe in here.

Felicity followed his gaze. “I think Lyla's fine, Ray.”

He nodded, most likely not even hearing her.

Felicity pulled her legs underneath her body and waited. The emergency waiting room at four in the morning on a Thursday was oddly enough deserted except for them. The middle aged nurse that had greeted them, stressed and on her feet, hadn't returned yet. An old clock ticked by, the faded black second hand moved in slow motion. On the other two-seat sofa, crookedly placed across from them, was Lyla curled up with one of the ancient and ominously sticky magazines from the holder on the wall. The time passed by in silence, with Ray watching Lyla, Lyla nodding off over a page and herself void of feelings. That peace didn't last long.

Sara just returned with her haul, a bucket-load of candy bars from the old and very rusty vending machine in the corner, when a voice begged attention.

“Felicity Smoak.”

Lyla shot up at the sudden noise, her body rigid like a military's. Felicity placed her feet on the floor. “That's me.”

"Follow me," the male nurse said, not waiting to shake hands.

They all got to their feet quickly and filed after the nurse that led them towards examination room number ten.

“The doctor will see you now.”

Felicity went inside first, with Lyla and Sara right behind.

Shiny white, spotless and generic, much like all hospitals were, was the examination room. It smelled faintly of disinfectant with a titch of vomit, also standard. The doctor, a young one - he had to be no more than thirty, tops - held out his hand.

“Felicity Smoak? My name is John Diggle, but all my patients call me Dig.”

She took it. His handshake was firm and warm.

“Nice to meet you.”

Dr Diggle smiled good naturally. He was an attractive person, right off the bat. 

He turned to the computer on the meticulous desk and read something before addressing her again. "I've only been briefly informed what you're here for, but am I right when I say you're here for a body exam?"

As he spoke, he gestured for her to sit down on the examination table situated against the wall, dressed with the usual one-use beige paper.

“Yes," she said when she'd sat down. "I've been in a sort of fight.”

The doctor raised his eyebrows an inch. 

“A sort of fight?”

“Mhm, I took a blow to the head.” She made a gesture to that general area and felt a little dumb. As if a doctor wouldn't know where the head was located. The smile Dr Diggle had worn faded away, traded for a professional expression of calm assertiveness.

“I see."

He looked to where Ray, Lyla and Sara were standing against the wall. Sara had her arms filled with candy, Ray had his behind his back and Lyla held hers crossed over the chest.

"These are your friends?” he said.

“Yes.”

He looked back to her again. “I feel it's better, when it comes to these kind of exams, that my patient and I are alone. Do you mind if they leave?”

Felicity glanced at them, nodding at the question in their eyes.

Sara was the first to move. "We'll be right outside. Call if you want anything."

The doctor held up the door for them as they went out. "I'll send for you the minute we're done her," he assured them before he closed the door and they were alone. On the floor was a chocolate bar that had dropped from Sara's arms. 

Felicity fidgeted with her legs where she sat with them dangling. The doctor smiled once again as he came up to her. "Now, can you tell me where you've been hurt?"

"He kicked me in the stomach. He hit me in the face and choked me."

"How many times? In what order?"

"First he choked me, then he hit me and when I was on the ground he kicked me."

As she repeated what had happened, a stab of fear penetrated her spine. She shivered, clutched the thin paper in her hands and locked it back in. It was only facts. They couldn't hurt her more than any other words. 

"Do you know who this man is?"

"They were four. No, I've never seen them before. Giants."

"They were big?"

"They were titans. You could see them from the moon. I was lucky I got the smallest one. But now I regret it. Big time. The asshole _left me there._ "

The good doctor didn't seem to understand the severity of this. Felicity leaned forward for emphasis, staring him straight in the face.

"Left. Me. There. All alone. Even after I saved him."

Still the doctor said nothing.

"But it's not like I'll ever see him again. But god, I wish I did. Then I would-"

She was starting to get worked up, but before she could detail exactly how she was going to hurt Hood if she ever laid eyes on him again, Dr Diggle interrupted.

"Miss Smoak, it seems like we've come off topic. This sounds like a matter for the police and I will gladly call them,  _after_ I've examined you."

"Police?" Just the word, the thought of having to leave a testimony, made her shrink up. "I don't know."

"Think about it. But know that it's completely up to you. It's your choice." He took off his stethoscope but waited until he caught her gaze. "Miss Smoak, before I begin to examine you, I have to ask and it would help me if you told me the truth. Did your partner do this to you?"

Felicity was exhausted, only now getting back some feeling in her feet. It was understandable that she was confounded by his question.

"My partner? Fred in Computer Science?"

The doctor flashed a surprised smile before he drew himself into a professional again.

"I meant a romantic partner. Your boyfriend or girlfriend," he supplied when met with silence. 

It took a second for her to understand. Then, "What? No. No!" she added for emphasis. "I don't even have one."

"So you were in a fight."

"Yes, I told you the truth from the beginning."

"Okay," he conceded. "Lift up your shirt, please."

Felicity did as instructed. When she accidentally grazed the sore skin in the process, she flinched.

"This might be a little cold," the doctor warned before placing the chestpiece on her back.

He listened, changed sides, and then listened to her lungs. When he removed the eartips from his ears, she asked, "Why do you think I'm lying to you?"

The doctor turned away to the movable cart and picked up a white penlight. When his eyes came back to her, he gestured to her legs.

"You told me you were injured only on the upper part of your body but you left out your shoulder. Your clothes are ripped and muddy; you're bleeding from multiple cuts on your thighs and calves. To me it looks like you tried to run away from someone who didn't stop after a few blows. And also, I would bet money on your foot being at least sprained if not fractured."

Felicity looked down at the damp panda that adorned her flats.

"I noticed you didn't put weight on it when you walked in."

"Are you sure? It doesn't hurt at all."

"It's the adrenaline. But your body knows better and it's already starting to compensate for the afflicted side."

"So you're saying my body is smarter than me?"

He smiled.

"That's usually the case."

She sighed, but couldn't help but return it. This whole night felt like a dream, a particularly strange dream, and one she didn't want to have ever again.

"Of course it is." 

He turned on the penlight and leaned forward to have a better angle. "Look straight at me."

Felicity focused on the spot of light, letting her memories go into hiding. When the doctor pulled back, satisfied, she'd already forgotten the horrible sounds and strange hours. The stranger's face slipped from her fingers, his name gone in the murky waters of her consciousness. 

"Well," she inquired, "am I going to live, doctor?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter three. Took half my life it seems. I'm gonna do better. Some day. Eventually.  
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed it :)


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